Kiteworks Inc., a startup that helps enterprises prevent unauthorized access to their data, has secured a $456 million funding round at a valuation exceeding $1 billion. 

The company disclosed the investment today. Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth provided the capital. TechCrunch, citing data from PitchBook, reported the deal included at least $228 million in equity funding as well as a secondary sale, a transaction through which existing investors sell shares.

A company’s employees frequently share business data with third parties. Members of the procurement department send merchandise orders to suppliers. The application development team, meanwhile, might share code with an external provider of software testing services. Such interactions create opportunities for sensitive data to fall into the hands of unauthorized parties.

San Mateo, California-based Kiteworks provides a platform for blocking data leaks. The Private Content Network, as the offering called, can spot outgoing emails with internal data that shouldn’t be made available to third parties. The platform also identifies data leaks across file sharing services and in systems that use SFTP, a popular network protocol for moving large datasets across devices.

Kiteworks’ platform visualizes data movements in an interface section dubbed the CISO Dashboard. It displays details such as who sent a given document outside the corporate network, who received it and what technologies were used to transfer the file. The dashboard flags file transfers that may have breached a company’s cybersecurity rules.

Besides spotting data leaks, the company’s platform also promises to reduce the risk of such incidents happening in the first place. It encrypts employee emails to ensure the data inside isn’t compromised if the correspondence is intercepted by hackers. Messages are likewise encrypted at rest, that is when they’re not moving across the network, to reduce the risk posed by malware.

Email attachments are usually embedded in the message to which they’re added. To reduce the risk of data theft, Kiteworks stores attachments in a cloud environment rather than within emails. Those cloud-based files are accessible to recipients through a link that administrators can disable to revoke access.

As part of its platform, Kiteworks also provides a virtual machine that companies can use to securely share sensitive data with trusted partners. It’s equipped with file sharing features and several preinstalled cybersecurity tools, including a firewall designed to block malicious network requests. If a vulnerability is found in one of the virtual machine’s components, administrators can download a patch through a no-code updating mechanism.

The feature set covers a number of other use cases as well. The company’s platform includes a tool that customers can use to create forms for collecting data from suppliers and customers. According to Kiteworks, built-in automation features ease tasks such as routing information submitted through a form to the relevant department.

The company says more than 3,650 organizations use its platform to protect about 100 million users. To further expand its market presence, it will reportedly spend a portion of the investment announced today on acquisitions. It has purchased four companies since the start of 2022, including three startups that provided secure file sharing tools for the enterprise market.

The investment will also enable Kiteworks to hire more people. It reportedly plans to hire more engineers and go-to-market professionals.

Image: Kiteworks